


A Spider's Spinning

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories are sticky, and they like company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spider's Spinning

  
**Title:** A Spider's Spinning  
**Day/Theme:** February 04 / before the world was created  
**Series:** Sandman  
**Character/Pairing:** Too many to list?  
**Rating:** G  
A long time ago, there lived a lad whose voice was sweet as the sugar from the cane. He could sing the birds from their trees and he could sing the bees from their hive. He could sing where the panther walks and call forth that sly black cat as easy as you please. Some say he called down the stars from the night, but others will tell you it's just a story, but a man once said something about shadows and half truths and stories. Who knows, he might even have been wise.

Now the boy's old father, he loved a woman who had him chase her into arms of Grandmother Death. 'Hell hath no Fury…' they say, but that's the boy's story. This one only has the cleverness of a woman who was wise as the crocodile who waits quiet as a log before snapping, and how she went to hell for all the trouble she took to make sure the universe didn't snap like the bones of the deer that old crocodile caught.

The boy's dad, he had a wild life, you see. One day, proud as you please, he and his sister walked into a bar. There was a man there, telling all who could hear him that there wasn't nothing to be scared of about Grandmother Death, which is as true as it goes. What you should look to be scared of, in this tale spinner's opinion, if it counts for anything, is the event that comes before Grandmother Death, if you take my meaning. But about that singer-boy's father, he made a bet with that braggarty drunkard, and to this day I hear tales of them drinking down good wine in dreams.

And there you go, easy as you please, you've got a world for the watching. I could tell tales of the sister's two goldfish, or of their other brother who was made for the high life like many a good story I could name and the dog he left his family for. I could tell tales of the braggart-man's many wives, each as beautiful as dew in the morning before the sun comes out to dry them away, and I could tell tales of an odd bird of a raven who believed himself a poet who was, incidentally, an acquaintance of the first boy's father.

Stories are sticky, you see, like the threads of a spider's spinning, weaving and interweaving until you've got something close to a universe. You could ask me, "Who's the spider?" And I could tell you that I can't tell you, but I'll throw you a line and spin the first strand of sticky for you: Once upon a before-time-began, somebody opened a book.


End file.
